Opinion | Michigan colleges fighting to survive — for students and communities

Michigan’s 28 public community colleges are essential to the state’s economic rebound from COVID-19.  Our impact on the regional economy is particularly acute, as our graduates are reskilled and ready to enter the workforce, ready to transfer to a four-year university, or perhaps both simultaneously.  We are at the forefront of a public health crisis that has upended traditional postsecondary education, and we are fighting for our students and our communities.

Not the least of our challenges has been balancing in-person classes, often students’ preferred mode of learning, with mitigating the spread of a highly contagious, airborne virus.  North Central Michigan College totals 1,982 students, faculty and staff, all of whom have adopted the “Together as North Central” pledge to demonstrate a shared commitment to our collective safety.  Since the resumption of in-person classes on September 8, we have been fortunate to keep virus transmission quite low, totaling 27 positive cases through December 4.  As a rule, thanks to socially distanced classrooms and our cooperative diligence, students and staff are not contracting COVID-19 on campus.  Rather, exposure seems to occur when we let down our guard in off-campus social situations we deem to be lower risk.  In this regard, our campus is a microcosm of a challenge facing the entire state, during what Gov. Gretchen Whitmer describes as the “worst part” of the pandemic.

The holiday season is set to collide with “COVID fatigue” and colder weather, a trifecta that threatens to overwhelm hospitals and local health departments.  Our desire to celebrate the holidays with friends and extended family — a tradition that offers comfort and a sense of normality in a year that has been anything but — will likely exacerbate community spread that is already exponential, according to state epidemiologist Sarah Lyon-Callo.

However, where there is a challenge, there is also opportunity.  As we have done since mid-March, we will adapt with the grit and tenacity typical of our students, and we will continue fighting for our communities.  Michigan’s community colleges are engines of economic opportunity, and as student-centered institutions, we know that we best serve our students when we can assist them in face-to-face interactions.

I have asked the members of our campus community to be hypervigilant this holiday season to protect one another from exposure to COVID-19.  I invite all Michiganders to join us in masking up and “celebrating small” so that we might leverage our collective strength in favor of our local, regional, and state economies.  Doing so will demonstrate our support for our frontline healthcare workers and allow us to best serve our students and communities.